


The Complication of Memory

by orphan_account



Category: Guy Gavriel Kay - The Lions of Al-Rassan
Genre: Gen, Yuletide, challenge:NYR 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 14:11:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1120801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief back story for Ammar ibn Kahairan</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Complication of Memory

 

 

Disclaimer: The Lions of Al-Rasan and the characters that appear here or are mentioned belong to the original creator, Guy Kavriel Kay; they are not mine. 

From the day that he had been old enough to not just passively listen but actually take part in the recitation of the age-old tale and Immar ibn Khairan had memorized them all, even the more obscure ones. 

While he understood the difference between fact and fiction he also understood that he had the need to put into his own words the feelings and ideas that churned around his heart and mind. 

To feel was to be alive, to touch and see and to drink it all in with all five of one's senses was made life worth living; and much to the amused if wry commentary of his elders and his tutors as a much younger man, Immar had made himself a vow, a vow made in the hearing of his elders and sworn to the great god Allah to seal it. He would live his life to the fullest, or die trying.

It was a vow worthy of some of the most admirable of the heroes, warriors, and perhaps even kings from his treasured stock of tales of the old days, and even more importantly the faded glory of the recent past. 

One of his favorite tales that he still held onto as an adult; much like a lover forced to part from the object of their affection for reason of either expediency or some other inexplicable cause might hold onto to a token of that person. 

Immar recalled tales of mighty storytellers and warriors who could compose complete epic poems of heroes and lovers and kings all the while riding at a full gallop while on horseback. It would be only much later at a quite lull in those battles that any of this would be written down.

Immar was well aware of his limitations in both the martial arts of war and of the written word, although as he mused among the glittering walls of the inner gates of the palace marveling at the brilliance of his people's engineering skills to bring water to an otherwise sere and thirsty land, he certainly was no slouch when it came to putting pen to scroll.

`Writing in verse is an entirely different prospect than that of other types of writing, he thought. In the back of his mind he thought, `Perhaps I am being too harsh. Perhaps my tutors were correct in admonishing when I was a boy at my lessons that I tend to me be overly critical of my own efforts and thus of others.' 

And for the first time in a very long time, he realized with a start as he bent down and leaned over the open watercourse that was grateful to have been born to the nobility, not for the wealth, luxuries, or even the political power that it granted his family, and by extension the son, but for the education that he had received in all arts considered essential for the well-born. 

`Even in this time, even in the twilight of glory, there are marvelous things. I would hate to seem them disappear in the dry dusty recording of history only to be forgotten."

There were fates worse than death and one thing that Immar feared, although he would admit to no one, he feared being forgotten, which may be the reason he loved the old legends so much, for they survived their creators and their heroes far past the time when those who had scribed them and lived and died in them were long gone.

"Unless something is quickly done quickly to reverse the course of our fortunes our glory, our story, much like this outlet of the river that they have diverted the course of, we too will be forgotten." 

Immar dipped his hand into the water and left it there while he considered his best approach through the winding maze of corridors he would have to traverse in order to reach his destination.

Immar realized that it was quite appropriate and his wool-gathering, might as well call it was it is, he thought as he yanked his hand out of the gurgling water watching as it quickly dried in the stifling heat of the late afternoon. 

The heat at this time of day was not quite as intense as it was at noon, at that time the orb of the sun stood blazing hot in a cloudless sky. And it made those caught both indoors and outdoors torpid and sluggish, and prone to sleep away in a coo place if they could at all manage it. 

"Not that it makes my task any easier, or does it?" he asked of his reflection in the rippling water. He did not expect any answer although the susurrus his of the wind through the air and the scent of jasmine planted close to the banks, and the tiny whirlpool of ripples stirred by both his hand and the wind caused his reflected image to blur and break away into smaller and smaller fragments.

Given that as a premise, his superiors had seen fit to dispatch him here with the idea that no one not even the guards posted at all the multitude of gates would notice his presence. 

He had a duty to perform here, no matter how difficult or distasteful it might be. On the heels of that thought Immar recalled a snatch of a verse from some half-remembered poem. "Duty can be as heavy as a mountain, or as light as a feather."

There is duty and there is 'duty', and soon with this one act he and others of like mind would divert the course not just of rivers but those of nations. 

It is a heady thought and he quickly stood up, squaring his shoulders and went to carry out his duty with the steely resolve that would see him through so much that was to come.

 


End file.
